“Whatever you do, don’t let her see you.” God forbid she caught him spying on her—but the more he thought about it, the more he had to find out what those mysterious morning trips of hers were about.
“Don’t worry. I’ll keep myself well hidden.” Nodding toward the stack of books on the chest—the result of Hugh’s latest trip to the used-book store—Adam said, “So, where’d you learn how to read?”
“Holy Trinity.”
The boy brightened. “That priory against the wall near Aldersgate?”
“That’s right.”
“I sleep there sometimes, in the stables.”
Carefully Graeham said, “When I first met you, you said your parents were butchers and you lived in the Shambles. And then, last week, you said something about needing to get to Fleet Street before the gates closed, and when I questioned you, you said you lived there.”
“We moved.”
“Why would you sleep in Holy Trinity’s stables if you had a home to go to, Adam?”
The boy backed away from the window.
“No, Adam, don’t go.” Graeham grabbed his crutch and bolted to his feet. The abrupt movement woke Manfrid, who’d been stretched out luxuriously across the foot of the bed. Startled, the cat jumped up and darted away.
Adam tensed as if he were about to do the same.
“Do you like sweetmeats?” Graeham asked. “I’ve got a piece of pine nut candy from the bakeshop that I’ve been saving. ‘Twas meant to be dessert after dinner today, but I was too full for it.” He lifted the treat from the chest and limped to the window, with Adam regarding him warily. “You may have it if you’d like.”
Adam eyed the honeyed confection with longing. “Me mum said I was never to take sweets from men.”
“I’m not one of those men, remember?”
Adam hadn’t taken his eyes off the candy. Graeham moved closer, holding it between the bars. Quick as a squirrel, the boy reached out and snatched it from his hand.
“Your mother sounds like a wise woman,” Graeham said, leaning on his crutch.
“She was.” Adam sniffed at the candy, then took a bite from the corner.
Was. “Your father...is he dead, too?” Graeham asked.
Adam looked at him at he chewed. He nodded slowly.
Graeham sat down on the edge of the cot with his crutch across his lap. “Why didn’t you want me to know?”
“No one knows,” Adam said around a mouthful of the sticky delicacy. “‘Tisn’t safe.”
Graeham nodded as if this made sense to him, but in truth he was stumped. “Why don’t you start at the beginning, Adam? Where did your parents live when they were alive? What part of London did you grow up in?”
Adam stared at him as he ate, his eyes filled with suspicion.
“You have to be able to trust someone, Adam,” Graeham said soothingly. “I only want to help you.”
Adam swallowed and licked crumbs off his lips. “I didn’t grow up in London. Me pa, he was a free bondman in Laystoke Manor, just north of here.”
“A farmer, then?”
“Aye, with his own furlong in the village field,” Adam said. “He grew oats and peas and beans, mostly, but I had my own little patch at the end where I got to plant whatever I wanted. I grew lettuce, leeks, onions and cabbages. And I kept watch over me little brothers and sisters.”
“It sounds as if you liked it there.”
“A far sight better than I like it here, I can tell you. On the farm, you could breathe. In London...” Adam shuddered. “There’s a new bad smell everywhere you turn, and some of them, you don’t even know what they are. Others, you wish you didn’t know. On the farm, if you smelled somethin’, you knew what it was, and most likely you could just wipe it off your foot and be done with it.”
“What brought you here?” Graeham asked.
Adam took another bite. “There were too many of us, me brothers and sisters and grandparents. One furlong, it wasn’t enough to feed all of us and still make our rent at harvesttime. I was the oldest child, so I was picked to come to London and appren¬tice to Mistress Hertha, the weaver.”
“You were apprenticed to a weaver?” Graeham asked. Weaving was women’s work.
“I liked the weaving,” Adam said. “And Mistress Hertha, she was all right. Only I didn’t much like that husband of hers.”
“Did he beat you?”
“Nay, he...looked at me.”
“Looked at you.”
“‘Twas the way he looked at me. And once, he walked in on me when I was takin’ me bath. Tried to help me wash up—that’s what he called it. I splashed soapy water in his eyes, but that only made him mad. So I told him me pa was a bear of a man and would come to London and wring his neck if he didn’t leave me be. So he left me be. For a time.”
Graeham steeled himself; he’d come this far. “What happened?”
Adam ate the last of the pine nut candy with a melancholy expression. “The yellow plague came to Laystoke. Killed me whole family.”
Graeham groped for words. “All of them? Everyone?”
“Me mum, me pa, me six brothers and sisters and most of me kin. ‘Cept for me uncle Oswin, ‘cause he’s too mean to die.”
Graeham closed his eyes briefly. “I’m sorry.”
“They’re in heaven now. They’re at peace.”
“Yes, of course. Still, I’m sorry. What became of you?”
“Mistress Hertha’s husband, well, he figured he could have his way with me now that me pa wasn’t around to stop him.”
Graeham’s fist clenched.
“But I wasn’t about to wait around and let it happen.”
“So you ran away.”
“Aye.”
“And now you’re living on the streets.”
Adam shrugged.
“And sleeping...where? Stables, alleys, doorways?”
“‘Tisn’t too bad now that it’s getting warm—and I’m small, so folks don’t notice me.”
“Why don’t you throw yourself on the mercy of one of the almshouses?” Graeham asked.
“Bad people go to the almshouses. I don’t like to be where they are.”
There’s lots of bad men in London, Adam had said once. You’ve got to keep your wits about you.
“‘Twas clever of you to dress like a boy,” Graeham said.
Adam—or whatever her name really was—stilled in the act of licking honey off her delicate but grimy fingers.
“As you say, most of the bad men are after the girls.”
The child wiped her hands on her braies. “How’d you know?”
“‘Twasn’t any one thing. You really make a very convincing boy.”
“Thank you.”
“What’s your name?” Graeham asked. “Your real name.”
“Alice.”
“What a lovely name.”
Alice smiled prettily—too prettily, for she suddenly looked every bit the little girl she was, despite her woolen cap and the film of dirt on her face. Sooner or later, some “bad man” would notice that pretty smile and figure it out. Graeham didn’t like to think what would happen then.
“You ought not to be living on the streets the way you do,” Graeham said. “Especially being a girl and all.”
A movement from the salle caught his eye. Joanna was bringing the stein of ale he always liked around this time of day. He wondered how she would feel about taking in yet another stray. Alice could sleep on a pallet in the salle, or possibly even in the solar, if Joanna didn’t mind.
“I mustn’t let her see me,” Alice said. “She might recog¬nize me tomorrow morning if she happens to notice me while I’m following her.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Graeham said, much less concerned now with keeping tabs on Joanna than with making sure little Alice didn’t spend another night on the streets.
“There’s someone I want you to meet,” he told Joanna as she entered the storeroom.
“Who?” She looked around, mystified.
Graeham turned toward the alley window. Alice was gone.
* * *
Squatting on a limb of the big tree overhanging Joanna Chapman’s kitchen hut and shielded from view behind a screen of newly sprouted leaves, Alice of Laystoke watched the back door open. Mistress Chapman emerged wearing a shapeless brown kirtle, her hair veiled, a marketing basket over her arm.
Finally! Alice had been waiting in this tree since dawn, eager to earn those four pennies Graeham Fox had paid her yesterday, one of which she’d spent last night on a ham pasty and a sweet wafer, her best meal since leaving Mistress Hertha’s. Shortly after she’d climbed up here, the serjant had limped out on his crutch wearing naught but a pair of baggy linen underdrawers, which he’d started untying even before the privy door swung closed behind him. Mistress Joanna had come out in her wrapper for the same purpose a while later, fetching a bucket of well water on her way back inside.
After that, all had been quiet for some time. Alice had watched the rising sun illuminate the thatched roofs of West Cheap and majestic St. Paul’s cathedral on Ludgate Hill...and waited. Now her waiting was over. Mistress Joanna was walking away from the house and down the alley toward Milk Street, her stride swift and purposeful.
Alice waited until her quarry was almost out of sight, then swung off the branch and dropped to the ground. Hearing her name hissed, she turned. At first she didn’t see anyone, but then she noticed movement in the small, deep rear window of the house. It was Graeham Fox, gesturing her to come to him.
“I can’t,” she whispered back, pointing toward Mistress Joanna, walking rapidly down the alley. “I’ll lose her.”
Alice darted into the alley just in time to see the shop lady turn left onto Milk Street at the end. She glanced in Alice’s direction just as she disappeared from view; Alice hoped she hadn’t noticed her, but even if she had, she wouldn’t take much note of one scruffy little girl—boy. She must remember that she was a boy now, and act the part. No more being careless. Not all men were good, like Serjant Fox.
At the end of the alley, Alice peeked around a tall stone wall that separated the alley from a fancy blue and red house. Mistress Joanna opened the front gate and walked through it. A moment later, Alice heard a knocking, followed by muffled voices and a door opening and closing.
The Church of St. Mary Magdalene stood directly across from the blue and red house. Alice ran across the street and into the deep, arched doorway of the small stone church. Crouching in the concealing shadows, she trained her gaze on the fancy house, unnerved by the carvings that surrounded her in the entryway—a saintly figure being accosted by beasts with snarling, wolflike heads. She stuck her tongue out at them, then concentrated on ignoring them.
The waiting was the worst part of it, she decided, growing fidgety as time crawled by. Following someone wasn’t that hard; sitting and doing nothing was excruciating.
She bolted to her feet when the front door opened and Mistress Joanna appeared, glancing around as she passed through the gate; Alice pressed herself further into the shadows. The shop lady retraced her steps, turning right onto Milk Street and then again around the high stone wall, disappearing into the alley.
When she was out of sight, Alice dashed across the street and into the alley—only to come face-to-face with Mistress Joanna glaring down at her, hands on hips, her basket looped over her arm. “Why are you following me?”
Alice squealed and spun around. Her legs pumped wildly, but she didn’t go anywhere; the shop lady had her by the back of her shirt.
“Not so fast, young man. I want to know why you’ve been following me.”
“Let me go! I didn’t do nothin’.”
“Ah, but you did. And I want to know why.”
Whatever you do, don’t let her see you. Alice hadn’t been careful enough; she’d been caught. The serjant would be disappointed in her. He might even want his fourpence back.
“Let me go!” Alice swatted at the shop lady’s hand, but she held tight on to the shirt. The child kicked, as hard as she could.
That did it. Mistress Joanna cried out as Alice’s foot connected with her leg. Her grip loosened on the shirt.
Alice turned to run.
Hands grabbed at her. Her cap was yanked off; she felt her braids spring out.
“What the devil...? Wait!”
Alice sprinted into Milk Street, but her progress was aborted by arms wrapping around her and lifting her off the ground.
“Not so fast,” Mistress Joanna said as she carried Alice, kicking and flailing, back into the alley. “We need to have a conversation, you and I.”
Alice struggled mightily, but the shop lady had her in an iron grip. She carried her calmly up the alley, saying, “Serjant Fox told me there was a little girl named Alice running about dressed as a boy. That would be you, I assume.”
“Let me go!” Alice geared up her nerve to say a bad word. “You bitch! Let me go!”
“I think not.”
Alice looked up as they crossed the croft to Mistress Joanna’s back door. She looked toward the little rear window, dreading what she would see. Sure enough, Graeham Fox was there, watching her being lugged like a sack of turnips toward the back door.
Mistress Joanna carried her into the house, down a hallway, and through a leather-curtained doorway into the little storeroom-turned-bedchamber. Serjant Fox was sitting on the edge of his cot, his expression doleful. “Good morrow, Alice.”
“I’m sorry, serjant,” Alice said as Mistress Joanna plunked her on her feet and gave her back her cap. “She saw me. I can give you three of your pennies back, but I spent the fourth.”
“Your pennies?” said Mistress Joanna.
Graeham Fox closed his eyes briefly. Realizing what she had done, Alice felt her stomach constrict in a knot of remorse. She pulled her cap back on, shoving her braids beneath it.
The shop lady walked up to Serjant Fox. “Your pennies, serjant?”
He lifted his crutch and pulled himself to his feet. “Mistress...”
“I take it you paid this child to follow me.”
He sighed.
“I might have known.”
“I needed to know where you’ve really been going every morning,” he said. “And don’t tell me you’ve been marketing, because you hardly ever bring anything back.”
“She went to the red and blue house!” Alice offered, thinking he might let her keep the money he’d paid her if she gave him the information he’d been seeking.
The serjant smiled slowly. “I thought that might be it.”
Mistress Joanna gave Alice a look before returning her attention to Graeham Fox. “You are sorely trying my patience, serjant.” She wasn’t acting angry, but how could she not be?
Alice swallowed hard. They were both mad at her now—and at each other, as well. She’d mucked things up badly. Digging the three remaining pennies out of her purse, she held them out to the serjant. “Here. I got caught, so...”
“Keep them,” he said. “I don’t want them back.”
Somehow that made her feel even worse. She returned the money to her purse and edged toward the doorway.
“You could have simply asked me where I was going,” said Mistress Joanna.
“Would you have told me the truth?”
Unseen by the shop lady and the serjant, Alice pulled the leather curtain aside.
“That’s not the point.”
“Mistress...”
“I’m going to continue my visits to Ada le Fever, but don’t think for a moment I’m doing it for you, serjant. And don’t expect me to spy for you or report back to you, because I won’t.”
“I understand,” he said, with a hint of smugness. “But I also know that you’ve got far too much honor and compassion to keep quiet if you suspect any wrongdoing on the part of Rolf le Fever. You’d report to me rather than let any harm come to his wife.”
Alice slipped through the curtain, raced up the hall and out the back door. It banged be
hind her.
“Alice!” Graeham Fox called from inside.
She heard Mistress Joanna say, “I’ll go after her,” but she knew she had too much of a head start to be caught—not by a woman.
“Alice!” the serjant yelled through the window. “Come back! Please!”
But Alice knew, as she sprinted away, that she would never go back there, ever again. She’d caused enough trouble for those people. No use sticking around to cause more.
Chapter 18
“Thank you for seeing me, Brother Prior,” said Joanna early that evening as she was ushered into the office of Simon of Cricklade, Prior of Holy Trinity.
“Not at all.” Brother Simon circled his desk and gestured Joanna into one of two high-backed chairs facing each other in a corner of his office. He sat in the other, adjusting his black, cowled habit so that it lay smooth over his lap. “When I was told it was Graeham Fox who had sent you, I knew I had to see you. I haven’t seen the boy since he left here eleven years ago...although I don’t suppose he’s a boy any longer.”
Brother Simon’s office, austere yet strangely elegant, suited him perfectly. The prior was old, very old, with snowy hair beneath his skullcap and translucent, softly fissured skin. Yet, despite a slight palsy in his head and hands, his movements were smooth and graceful, his back straight, his gaze astute—and kind, which served to put Joanna at ease even though she’d never set foot in a monastery before, much less had an audience with its chief administrator.
The prior turned to the young monk who’d escorted Joanna into his office and said, “Spiced wine, if you please, Brother Luke.”
Brother Luke nodded and retreated from the chamber, closing the door softly behind him. The prior sat back in his chair and crossed his legs. “I’m sorry Graeham couldn’t come himself. A broken leg, you say?”
“Aye, the work of robbers.”
Brother Simon shook his head. “This can be an unkind city.”
“He asked me to convey his best wishes, and that he’s planning to visit you before he returns to Beauvais next month.”
“I’d like that.”
“The reason I came here,” she said, “is to ask for your help in locating a child.”
Lords of Conquest Boxed Set Page 22
